Innes Gray working to repair a damaged fence. Photo / Photo Diane McCarthy
A freak tornado that has meteorologists intrigued appears to have struck central Whakatāne on Monday morning.
Fences were bowled in the Peace St area and roofs and trees took a beating during the unexplained weather event.
By the afternoon, Innes Gray had already concreted in three new fence posts to replace those blown over.
Residents were given a fright as what they described as a tornado blew through streets and across people’s backyards.
Damage to property was reported by several residents in Peace St, Pohutu St, Bracken St and McGarvey Rd.
Others living in different parts of these streets said they heard nothing.
No injuries have been reported.
Bracken St resident Carol Venner said the tornado came past her property just after 9.30am. She thought it might have approached her house from the north.
“I was inside and I heard a noise that sounded like a freight train coming up my driveway,” she said.
It became very dark and her patio furniture was flung around her section in different directions.
“The noise was so frightening. It only lasted a minute or so, then it was just still.”
She said neighbours had fences blown over and a garage roof on a Pohutu St home was lifted.
Others reported damage to trees, a glasshouse and a gate blown off its hinges and seeing outdoor furniture lifted into the air.
One Peace St resident described seeing a tornado moving along the street towards his house from the east, knocking down fences and bending large trees sideways.
“I saw all the leaves on the road go spinning up into the air in a big spiral. It was an amazing sight.”
Another resident arrived home from work in the afternoon to discover his internet connection wasn’t working. On investigation he discovered the reinforced concrete-post fence his fibre connection was attached to had been snapped off at ground level.
Pohutu St resident Diane Sanson said she had just come home from walking her dog when the surprise weather event struck, blowing her fence over onto her driveway.
She said it was very scary, very dark and very loud.
“It was very lucky that we weren’t still out. A few minutes earlier, we had just been walking up that driveway,” Sanson said.
Gray, a Peace St resident, had his fence blown over, including three sturdy wood posts.
Luckily, his building skills were up to scratch, allowing him to put the posts back in place within hours.
MetService meteorologist Braydon White said the reports of a tornado were very surprising to him because there was little on the MetService radar and weather station observations to explain such an occurrence.
“We weren’t expecting anything like that. We didn’t have any thunderstorm risks out and those are really the drivers for tornadoes. You need those active convective systems that drive air moving up and down in the cloud. There could have been some very localised instability.
“There is a small [storm] cell on the radar that blows through around that time, so that does line up. It is relatively far from the radar so the resolution isn’t the best and it sounds like this was such a small scale that it probably wouldn’t pick anything up.”
Their nearest weather station at Whakatāne Airport had a maximum gust of 22 knots at that time – about 30-40km/h.
“My best guess is that it was a little squall that has gone through creating this localised area of strong wind – possibly a downdraft from this collapsing cell. Without a photo or video I can’t confirm that a tornado has taken place.
“It’s very intriguing to me. I would be very interested to see any photos or video showing a tornado.”